Skip to main content

Wired article about GR

“with its missiles and death camps and atomic bombs that sealed humanity’s suicidal covenant with technology—was civilization’s Brennschluss, and we have been in free fall ever since.” -Wired

I picked out that word to get into.

With this and other articles that come out regularly, I got to thinking about how Shakespeare as the knighted playwright of England, has people shift the purposes and misuse quotes because he is so revered. Is Pynchon America's version. I mean the writing is so obscure it's hard to imagine that possible, but with the regularly produced articles, it seems possible.

"Pynchon teases out a hefty head trip of plots and subplots, introduces hundreds of characters, and riffs on rocket science, cinema, Germanic runology, Pavlovian behaviorism, probability theory, witchcraft, futurism, zoot-suit couture, psychedelic chemistry, and the annihilation of the dodo. But there is, amid the novel’s encyclopedic remit, something like a story."

"Some Marxist thinkers maintain that everything in history happens (at least) twice: first as tragedy, then as farce."

I guess this means Trump running for president this time means it's a farce, and he's just going to grift his supporters into handouts to float his poor business that needs grift to stay afloat, and the reason why he doesn't want his taxes exposed is because he lies on them, and he doesn't pay taxes because he's in so much debt. He's not a bazillionaire, the banks own him.

The article is a bit of a stretch, I mean this world is quite different, but you can bet with the legalization of marijuana across many states, and the fact that Pynchon smoked according to another article, means that we'll be groovin to his high writings. Someone visited him in California while he was writing GR and he smoked and partied with young people, and there was a girlfriend and children in the background. He introduced himself through a friend who went to Syracuse with him, and Pynchon was warry, but he hung out with him for a week.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Manet and Degas

  Brilliant video explaining the exhibit. Go to the Met and see the exhibit! It's really quite special.  In the last gallery the painting this sketch is based off of, of the execution of a Mexican president. The painting has been cut into sections, and the surviving Degas has reassembled them. NY Times review

movie versus book

I'm watching the movie a second time, and I'm halfway through the book. Among the movie's differences from the book. Sortilege starts off narrating. The movie doesn't have the school bell for the phone either, just a regular ring. It's really weird the way Doc shouts when he sees the photo of Amethyst as a baby. I guess it's to dramatize the negative impact of being pregnant and using, but the child we see looks pretty healthy. The child doesn't huff out because they're boring like she did in the book.  Superficially The Big Lebowski and Inherent Vice are similar but it's a completely different style of narrative. The Coen brothers are amazing, they have a very witty movie that I have loved for a long time. Pynchon is a whole other realm of fiction, and this conversion is fairly faithful, taking out the best lines and making it more compact. The audio book is 15 hours, the movie is 2 hours. Anyway, I like the different movies for different reasons. T...

The case for Harris

Motley Kamuka Blog endorses Kamala Harris. In general, Trump just wants to lower taxes on the rich, and do nothing, sell whatever influence he can to line his pockets. Apparently the emoluments clause in the constitution has no teeth. Harris has a set of ideas about policy that are fairly middle of the road. In most countries she's would be seen as a centrist. Spin about her radical agendas are exaggerated.  I'm not sure how he got past " grab them by the pussy ", but he did and here we are. Women: Obviously the idea of giving women pregnancy tests at the borders of the state, and then if they come back and don't have a baby, they go to jail, isn't really what most women want. Pick Harris.  I understand if you think abortion is murder, maybe you've been told that by the Catholic church, which has the same ideal of Buddhism that you don't kill--so follow your religion for yourself. Not everyone is Christian or Buddhist or even has a religion. Women are ...